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REMARKS OF J. H. BENTON, JR. 

PRESIDENT OF THE VERMONT 

ASSOCIATION OF BOSTON • AT ITS 

ANNUAL BANQUET . THURSDAY 

JANUARY 12, 1905 



From J. H. Benton^ Jr., 

Ames Building, 

Boston, Mass. 



REMARKS OF J. H. BENTON, JR. 

PRESIDENT OF THE VERMONT 

ASSOCIATION OF BOSTON • AT ITS 

ANNUAL BANQUET . THURSDAY 

JANUARY 12, 1905 



BOSTON • PRIVATELY PRINTED 



f6o 



The Unitebsitt Pbess, CAMBBrooE, Mass., U. S. A. 



FEB Ci'^l'J 



Remarks of J. H. Benton, Jr., President of The 
Verviont Association of Boston, at its Annual 
Banquet, Thursday, January 12, 1905. 

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, 
Invited Guests, and Brethren of the 
A Association, — I welcome you all to this 
Annual Dinner of the Vermont Association of 
the City of Boston. 

We began in 1887 with sixty-seven members, 
and at our first banquet we had an attendance of 
fifty-six persons. We now have six hundred and 
fifty-two members, and constant accessions to 
our membership. We have had an annual dinner 
every year since our organization, and we were 
the pioneers in opening rooms for the daily use 
of a State Association. Our example was eagerly 
followed by the Sons of New Hampshire, and is 
now being followed by the Sons of the Pine Tree 
State, who propose to move into the abandoned 
nest of the Twentieth Century Club. It is to 
be hoped they will not adopt all the ideas of the 
Twentieth Century Club. (Laughter.) 

The tie of birth in a particular place has been 
said to be one that will not alone hold an Asso- 
ciation together, because different kinds of people 
are born in the same State. But the reason 
that the tie of being born in Vermont holds an 



» 



[2] 
Association together is perfectly obvious. It 
is because nobody is ever born in Vermont, of 
the lineage of the Fathers of Vermont, who is 
not a proper person to be loved and liked and 
associated with by everybody else. (Laughter 
and applause.) 

Now, we come here year after year as Ver- 
monters, as Vermonters living in Massachusetts, 
as Vermonters who live in the Federal Union, 
and every year at this gathering we put side by 
side the flag of our native State and the flag of 
our adopted State, and on either side of these 
we place the gorgeous ensign of the Republic. 
(Applause.) But we come here primarily be- 
cause we are Vermonters, to pledge ourselves to 
the ideas for which Vermont stands and always 
has stood. 

In these days when college professors are 
teaching that the Revolution which freed the 
Colonies from the tyranny of England was on 
the whole a mistake, when so-called "cultivated" 
people are speaking of patriotism as a "narrow 
virtue," and of the flag as a mere " piece of tex- 
tile fabric," a piece of "painted bunting," it is a 
good thing for the Sons of Vermont to come 
together and kindle anew their devotion to those 
principles of liberty and loyalty for which Ver- 
mont has always stood fast and foremost. 
(Applause.) 

The early settlers of Vermont were poor in 



[3] 
money, but rich in courage and in strength. 
They were strong, sturdy, earnest men and 
women. They were sufficient unto themselves, 
and by severe and constant toil they took jfrom 
the soil on which they settled nearly all that 
was necessary for a plain, simple, healthful life. 
They had clay for bricks and lime for mortar, 
and the woods gave them logs and lumber, from 
which they made their rude but comfortable 
dweUings and furniture. From the sap of the 
maple they made delicious sugar, and the hem- 
lock gave the bark with which to tan the hides of 
their cattle into excellent leather. From the flax 
they made durable linen for household use and for 
summer clothing, and from the wool of their sheep 
warm blankets and excellent "frocking" and other 
clothing for wear in winter. The lye leached 
from the ashes of the clearings made "potash" 
and "pearl-ash," not only for their own necessi- 
ties, but for sale in the distant markets of 
Portland and Boston, where they obtained salt, 
almost the only necessity of life which Vermont 
does not produce. Wheat, rye, oats, barley, In- 
dian corn, and nearly all the other cereals of the 
temperate zone grew on the hillsides and in the 
valleys, while the blackberry, raspberry, blue- 
berry, strawberry, and other healthful and 
delicious fruits grew wild in the woods and glades. 
They raised apples, currants, cherries, plums, 
pears, and other cultivated fruits. Coffee beans 



[4] 

made a fair substitute for imported coffee, and 
they even had from the leaves of various shrubs 
a substitute for tea. Tobacco, less fragrant but 
equally as wholesome as that from beyond the 
sea, was raised in the south, and with care in 
sheltered places in the north. 

The lakes, rivers, and brooks were filled with 
bass, pickerel, muskalonge, trout, and other fish, 
while in the woods bear, deer, raccoon, partridge, 
and other game were found in abundance. They 
trapped the otter and the beaver in the streams, 
and the fox on the hillside. They had geese, 
turkeys, fowls, and pigeons, while the horses, 
sheep, and cattle which gi-azed in their pastures 
and fed on the hay from their meadows were not 
excelled elsewhere. They built their own carding 
and fuUing mills and looms, and their own tan- 
neries. The women spun the yarn, wove the 
cloth, and made the sheets, blankets, and gar- 
ments, and the soap for washing, and the candles 
for light in their own homes. The men tanned 
the leather, and once a year the travelling shoe- 
maker set up his bench in the great kitchen with 
its capacious fireplace, and made the boots and 
shoes for the family. They had cider from the 
apple, and wine from the rhubarb, the elderberry, 
and the wild grape. They needed no butcher or 
baker, for they baked in their brick ovens and 
had their beef, mutton, and pork from their own 
flocks and herds and yards. 



[5] 

They put school-houses and meeting-houses on 
the hillsides, and the teachers taught for small 
pay and " boarded around " by the scholar, while 
the ministers were paid mainly in the produce of 
the farms. They had none of the appliances of 
modern husbandry. The mowing-machine, the 
horse-rake, the reaper, the threshing-machine, the 
improved plough, and the cultivator were un- 
known. The axe and the crowbar, the beetle 
and the wedge, the sickle and the scythe, the 
shovel and the hoe, the flail and the fan, were the 
simple implements with which they subdued 
the wilderness, cultivated the soil, and gathered 
its harvest. They had no eight-hour day, but 
labored *' from sun to sun." With the exception 
of the Fourth of July, when they assembled to 
hear the Declaration of Independence read, and 
usually to hear an " oration " by the minister, and 
Thanksgiving, when they worshipped, and fed on 
the good things they raised, they had no holidays ; 
labor was so constant and unremitting that it be- 
came a habit of their lives, and their descendants 
even now, under better conditions, often feel that 
a leisure hour is an offence. They were orderly, 
industrious, frugal. God-fearing, and independent 
people. They owned the land they tilled, and 
were the most perfect democracy in America. 
They sought freedom in the fertile valleys and 
verdant mountains, and when they were threat- 
ened by the armies of England on the north. 



[6] 
menaced by the hostility of New York on the 
west, tormented by the claims of Massachusetts 
and New Hampshire on the south and east, and 
refused even recognition by the Continental 
Congress, they not only protected their homes 
with their trusty rifles, but they founded the first 
complete constitutional government on the con- 
tinent. Their long struggle for the protection of 
their homes stimulated and strengthened their 
native love for personal liberty, and the dominant 
trait in the character of their descendants has 
been intolerance of oppression and intense devo- 
tion to personal freedom. 

There is an incident in the life of a Vermont 
magistrate which I think exemplifies this trait 
of Vermont character so well that I venture to 
relate it to you. Theophilus Harrington, whose 
name I dare say is unfamiliar to most of you, was 
a judge of the Supreme Court of Judicature of 
Vermont from 1783 to his death in 1813. There 
once appeared before him a man claiming to be 
the owner of a fugitive slave, a black boy who 
had escaped from bondage, and whom the claim- 
ant asked to have returned under the Fugitive 
Slave Law of 1793. Harrington said to him : 
" Well, put in your title." The claimant then 
produced and proved the execution of a bill of 
sale of the boy from a person who had for- 
merly held him as a slave to the claimant, and 
proved by affidavits the identity of the boy with 



[7] 
the one named in the bill of sale. The judge 
then said : " Is that all ? " The claimant re- 
pHed that would seem to be enough, but finally 
produced and put in evidence a bill of sale of 
the mother of the boy from a man who had 
held her as a slave to the man who made the bill 
of sale of the boy to the claimant. " Is that all ? " 
said Judge Harrington. "Why, yes," said the 
claimant, " I have gone back to the ownership 
of the mother." " Yes," said the judge, " but you 
have not gone back to the original proprietor. 
A bill of sale from God Almighty is necessary to 
make title to a man in Vermont. The prisoner 
is discharged." And so the black boy went free. 
(Great applause.) 

It was of this decision that Senator Sumner, 
speaking in the United States Senate more than 
half a century after, said in that sonorous English 
which he loved so well : '* I know something 
of the jurisprudence of our country, but I know 
of nothing in the wisdom of JNIarshall, the learn- 
ing of Story, or the fulness of Kent which will 
ripen with time like this honest decree." INIr. 
Sumner was right. That decree has ripened with 
time because it was based upon the primary prop- 
osition upon which all sound government rests, 
that every man owns himself. The people of 
Vermont did not forget this honest and fearless 
magistrate, for in 1884 the legislature made an 
appropriation for the erection of a monument 



[8] 
to his memory. The monument was erected 
and dedicated by fitting ceremonies, among 
which was an address by the Hon. Hoyt H. 
Wheeler, the present United States District 
Judge for the District of Vermont, on July 3, 
1886, and it now stands in the pleasant town of 
Clarendon, to tell the story of this brave judge 
of old. 

The principle upon which Judge Harrington 
rested his decision is the primary principle of 
Vermont law, and the governing rule of Vermont 
Hfe. It represents what, to coin a word, may 
well be called " Vermontism" — devotion to per- 
sonal liberty, absolute intolerance of anything 
which interferes with the right of each human 
being to himself. This was the spirit in which 
the State of Vermont was founded. It was the 
spirit which prevailed in the building of the 
State by the Aliens, the Warners, the Chit- 
tendens, the Slades, and the long line of 
patriotic men who founded and built up this re- 
publican commonwealth. Every law, eveiy cus- 
tom, every act of the men of Vermont, show their 
devotion to personal liberty. They inscribe on 
their State flag — "Unity and Freedom." In 
their constitution they call themselves, " Freemen 
of Vermont." Their town meetings have always 
been known as " Freemen's meetings," and their 
representatives in the legislature are by the con- 
stitution termed " Representatives of the Free- 



[9] 
men of Vermont." No sane person has ever 
been deprived of personal liberty in the State of 
Vermont except upon due conviction of crime. 
No slave was ever returned to bondage from the 
State of Vermont. When the federal govern- 
ment, controlled by the representatives of the 
slave-holding States, enacted the infamous Fugi- 
tive Slave Law of 1852, Vermont promptly met 
this abominable statute by acts securing to persons 
claimed as fugitive slaves the right of the writ of 
habeas corpus and a jury trial, and making it the 
duty of the State attorneys in the different 
counties diligently and faithfully to use all 
lawful means to protect, defend, and procure the 
discharge of every person claimed as a fugitive 
slave under the Fugitive Slave Act. (Applause.) 

When the slave-holding States attempted to 
break up the Union by force of arms in 1861, the 
love of liberty of the people of Vermont prompted 
them to the most heroic exertions in behalf of the 
Union. The story of their deeds is familiar to 
you all. Indeed, many of us had a part in what 
was done. It is good for us not only to re- 
member it, but to talk about it. 

The State had no military organization and had 
arms hardly sufficient to equip a single regiment, 
but its Governor was the first to issue a call for a 
special session of the legislature to aid the federal 
government, and to raise a regiment of troops for 
immediate service. 



[10] 

On April 25, 1861, the legislature met at 
Montpelier, and within twenty-four hours by 
unanimous votes of both House and Senate it 
appropriated one million dollars for war pur- 
poses, and also provided for raising six regi- 
ments for two years' service, being the State's 
share of an army of 600,000 men, in addition to 
the one regiment called for by the President for 
three months' service. It then voted to pay 
seven dollars a month to each private soldier in 
addition to the thirteen dollars paid by the gen- 
eral government, provided that the necessities of 
the families of all soldiers should be relieved at 
the expense of the State, laid a war tax of ten 
cents on the dollar of the grand list, and within 
forty- two hours after it met it adjourned, having 
done more for the Union in that brief time than 
any other State in proportion to its population 
and resources. 

And the freemen of Vermont never halted or 
faltered in the great work of saving the national 
Union. With a total population in 1861 of only 
315,009 men, women, and children, and but 
60,719 men subject to military duty, Vermont 
sent to the Union Army and Navy 35,242 men, 
or more than eleven per cent of her entire popu- 
lation. More than one-half of the able-bodied 
men capable of bearing arms in Vermont volun- 
teered and served in the defence of the Union. 
With a total tax valuation of aU the real and 



[11] 

personal property of all her people, a little over 
$85,000,000, she expended nearly $10,000,000 
for war purposes. (Applause.) More than 5,000 
of her soldiers were killed in battle, or died in 
service of wounds and disease ; more than 5,000 
more were discharged from the service for 
wounds or disability received in it, making nearly 
one- third of the whole number. 

It should also be remembered that these 
troops were not from the ranks of the vagrant 
and the vicious, or from the surplus and idle 
population of crowded cities. They were the 
flower of the young men of the State, nurtured 
in Christian homes, taught in Christian schools. 
They came from the farms, the shops, and the 
professions, and from every walk of industrious 
and honest hfe. Each was dear to some family 
circle, where loved ones silently suffered when 
he fell, and where in many a woman's heart 
there still rests the shadow of an unending 
sori'ow. 

The number of Vermont soldiers killed in 
battle exceeded the ratio killed in the whole 
army by twenty-five in every thousand ; and taking 
into account the sons of Vermont killed in action, 
who served in regiments from other States, more 
men of Vermont fell in battle for the Union than 
from any Northern State, in proportion to its 
population. Its troops fought in the first battle 
of the war and in the last battle, and in over one 



[12] 
hundred and fifty reported engagements. About 
one-third of the soldiers from Vermont served in 
what was known as the " Vermont Brigade," the 
only brigade in the army that was known by a 
distinctive name. It was a part of the famous 
Sixth Corps, and was distinguished as the " fight- 
ing brigade of the fighting corps." This brigade 
was engaged in thirty-seven officially reported 
battles and engagements, or an average of nearly 
three a month, and it marched over two thou- 
sand miles in Maryland and Virginia. Its pro- 
portion of men killed in action and fatally 
wounded was nearly three times as great as the 
average in the entire Union Army. It carried 
the colors of Vermont in the front of many of 
the bloodiest battles of the war, and brought 
them all back untarnished and untouched save 
by the shot and shell and the smoke and blood 
of battle. (Great applause.) 

And when, on the third day of the battle of 
Gettysburg, Lee, after concentrating upon the 
centre of the Union line the fire of one hundred 
and fifty guns for two hours, hurled against it the 
flower of his army, under General Pickett, in 
the most determined assault of the war, it was 
the 13th and 16th Regiments of the Second Ver- 
mont Brigade commanded by Stannard, which 
wheeled from the line and moving at double 
quick struck the advancing rebel column in the 
flank, and broke the charge that would otherwise 



[13] 
probably have pierced the Union Hne. It is no 
wonder that when General Doubleday saw this 
daring move of General Stannard, and realized 
what its result would be he shouted, " Glory to 
God ! glory to God ! See the Vermonters go it." 
The scene has been often painted in words to 
which nothing can be added by me, and it will 
live in story and in song as long as American 
history endures. (Applause.) 

Time does not permit the tithe of this wondrous 
story to be told, and yet it would be incomplete 
without a reference to the men of Vermont who 
served in the troops of other States. Some idea 
of how many there were, and of how well they 
served, is given by the fact that a very incom- 
plete list of Vermont men holding commissions 
in the troops of other States comprises the names 
of six full major-generals, fifteen brigadier-gen- 
erals, twenty-five colonels, thirteen lieutenant- 
colonels, forty-five majors, and two hundred and 
six captains and lieutenants. (Applause.) 

What Vermonter's heart does not throb with 
pride at these recollections ? We love the soil of 
our native State — this Sparta of America. From 
its mountains robed in green and its hilltops 
crowned with the clustering maples to its val- 
leys clad in verdure ; from the beautiful Con- 
necticut winding amid broad and fertile meadows 
to the romantic Winooski and Missisquoi flowing 
to the shining Champlain, it is all dear to us. 



[14] 
But more than this we cherish its history and 
its memories ; the story of its early trials and of 
its later success, of the lives of its sturdy men 
and its noble women, of their devotion to free- 
dom and to personal liberty, of their constancy 
and their courage, and the sacred memories 
that cluster about the homes of our childhood, 
— these are our choicest heritage. (Prolonged 
applause.) 



LIBRftRY OF CONGRESS 



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